For a typical child, the process of learning to read and write usually begins during the pre-school years or kindergarten. Using conventional teaching methods, a child initially learns to identify the letters of the alphabet. Then, beginning with short two and three letter words, the child is taught to string together the sounds of the letters to identify words. Once the child has become proficient at reading short words, the process can be expanded to teach the child to sound out and spell longer words, eventually leading to reading and writing. Unfortunately, teaching a child to read and write using conventional methods can be a lengthy process. It is not until about the third grade that a typical child becomes relatively proficient at reading.
Graphic objects that are recognizable to children are sometimes used to facilitate the learning process. For example, a pictograph of an apple can be associated with the letter “a,” a pictograph of an egg can be associated with the letter “e,” and a pictograph of an umbrella can be associated with the letter “u.” To generate learning materials that include such pictographs can be very costly, however, due to the complexity in correctly associating the pictographs with the letters. Indeed, such processes are typically performed quasi-manually using a graphics application and can be very labor intensive.